


Fire With Snow III

by Crowgirl



Series: On the Strength of the Evidence [9]
Category: Grantchester (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Ficlet, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Letters, Not Beta Read, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Slash, Short & Sweet, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-29 19:03:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8501797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: Dear Mr. Finch...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kivrin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kivrin/gifts).



Leonard sets his cup of cocoa down carefully on an old envelope well away from his books and sits down at his desk. The vicarage is locked up for the night -- he’s left the light on over the front step just in case but he sincerely hopes no-one will knock. 

The register by the door is hissing and pinging, a sure sign that he’s about to get a blast of heat and he picks up the volume he’s been saving for a quiet night. As he does, an unopened envelope slips out of the front cover and lands on the desk. It’s almost a cinematic moment and he sighs to think he set himself up for this.

Putting the book on one side, he picks up the envelope, slits the top open, and pulls out the letter without letting himself think about it. It’s a _letter,_ for heaven’s sake: what’s the absolute _worst_ it could contain? He already knows it isn’t from his mother’s friend Mildred, so it can’t possibly include news of the latest newly available woman in her village. He hopes his last letter had made his life in Grantchester sound so arduous that she’ll think he doesn’t have time for anything but work; he’d certainly put some effort into making it sound that way.

_Dear Mr. Finch, I’m sorry it has taken me so long---_

Ah, yes -- a polite, by the numbers thank-you note, exactly what he knew it would be. He picks up his cocoa and takes a sip to wash the bitterness out of the back of his mouth and scans the next few lines. Polite thanks for the Thomas, how nice it had been to see him the week before, more apologies for dropping library books on his foot, so on and so forth. Nothing you couldn’t show the vicar -- so to speak. 

Ben’s handwriting isn’t all one would wish but presumably his tutors will knock that into shape soon enough. Judging by the look of him when they had, quite literally, run into each other at Christ’s, he’s settling into university life well. 

Leonard knows perfectly well he shouldn’t have let himself think about that afternoon just as at the time he’d known he shouldn’t invite Ben to a late tea. But it had been a beautiful day, cold and clear, and his favorite teashop was right around the corner and-- Ah, well. It had been a pleasant hour or two, there was nothing wrong with that. 

Leonard looks up as the wind rattles his window and sees a swirl of snow against the darkness. Sidney must be having an awful walk. As to what might bring a man to make that kind of walk when he has his own comfortable house -- well. That isn’t really Leonard’s business although he does hope Sidney doesn’t think he’s being subtle and that’s to say nothing of Geordie who has a habit of getting a little absent-minded around Sidney. It’s probably just as well Leonard’s the one left in charge this evening -- Sidney’s pastoral care would probably be distinctly lacking. 

He shakes his head and looks back at the letter which, now he considers it, is definitely _longer_ than a bread and butter thank-you would have to be. Ben not only thanks him for the book but comments on two of the poems; not only thanks him for tea but mentions he’s gone back several times and has Leonard ever had the cream buns? He talks about a tutorial he wants to do in the spring on modern poetry, asks Leonard for his thoughts on TS Eliot, all but suggests they meet again to discuss the question and try the cream buns.

Leonard drops the letter on his blotter and plants his elbows on either side of it, cupping the mug in his hands and pressing the warm ceramic against his forehead. He stares down at the first page -- the _first_ page! -- of Ben’s letter and tries to think. 

Technically, it still falls into the realm of the thank you note, so a response isn’t _necessary_ \-- and God only knows, Ben has enough reason never to want to think about Grantchester again. As far as Leonard knows, he and his father still haven’t spoken; Sidney had managed to get Ben early admittance to a room at college before term started or Leonard imagines he’d still be sleeping in the spare room one flight up. 

On the other hand, Ben didn’t _have_ to write at all; he could have simply said no to tea and left Leonard to his own wistful thoughts. 

Leonard sighs and fans out the pages of the letter as if they were cards, squinting at them through the steam of the hot chocolate as if that would make them reveal some secret clue, like the invisible ink in a _Beano_ puzzle. 

_Dear Mr. Finch..._ He grimaces; he hates being called Mr. Finch -- it makes him feel like a pantomime character and reminds him of the boys who made fun of him when his voice took a few months longer than theirs to drop: _chirp chirp chirp_ they had yelled at him in the schoolyard. _Little birdie_ they took to calling him for awhile although that was preferable to some of the other things they called him. 

He sniffs, slides the letter to one side, and retrieves his folder of letter paper from under a theological dictionary. His pen is acting as a bookmark in a bound volume of _The Criterion_ from 1935, but he replaces that with the letter’s envelope and uncaps the pen.

_Dear Benjamin..._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben saves Leonard Finch’s letter until after dinner.

Ben saves Leonard Finch’s letter until after dinner. He tucks it in the back of a thick German dictionary in an attempt to forget he has it; he has the book with him on the off-chance that he’ll want it in an afternoon tutorial. He doesn’t count on the fact that he doesn’t actually need the book making it harder to forget he has it, to say nothing of the letter inside the back cover.

When he gets back to his rooms in the full, cold dark of the winter evening, he leaves his snowy shoes by the door, draws the heavy curtains, sets on the kettle to make cocoa, and sits down in his one truly comfortable armchair in front of the small grate. The remains of his morning fire are still there -- his room was missed in the cleaning again: a scholarship student barely ranks against the duke’s grand-son one flight up and the Honourable across the hall -- and he takes a minute to rake the coals together and prod them into life with a few small chunks of wood and a little judicious fanning with a folded newspaper. 

He drags the chair closer and props his feet on the bars of the grate and finally lets himself tear the end of the envelope. _Dear Benjamin, It seems a little foolish to be writing you a thank-you note for your own thank-you note, but since you were so kind as to ask my opinion on some literary matters..._

Ben makes the cocoa automatically with one hand, setting the hot kettle on the hearthrug and flattening the third page of the letter on the arm of the chair with his other hand. He sits back, cradling the warm mug against his stomach, and tries to pretend that the small fluttering feeling in his chest is coming from the sudden warmth and not the even lines of Leonard’s handwriting. _Mr. Finch,_ he reminds himself firmly, closing his eyes for a minute to picture the words as they might be printed on a chalkboard like a verb conjugation he has to memorize. _Reverend Finch._

Leonard has carefully answered each of his questions and Ben is grateful to his past self for having taken the time to think of so many. The letter had taken him a whole afternoon and two failed drafts to write. Perhaps he had asked too many questions? He holds the pages of Leonard’s letter -- five, in all -- in one hand and fans them out in the firelight; the light makes the paper look transparent, the ink much blacker than it really is. 

Well -- Leonard certainly hadn’t _had_ to respond. If he had been too busy or not interested, Ben assumes he would have just taken his own letter for what it was at face value and ignored it.

The fact that he _hasn’t_ ignored it -- Ben tries not to let himself build too much on that even though he knows later, in his bed, he knows he’ll make sleepy half-dreams around it.

_If you would like to continue our conversation from last week, I’ll be in Cambridge on Thursday to continue my reading at the library. I’d be happy to meet you for a late tea if your tutorial schedule allows._

Ben can’t pretend that this flutter is from anything other than the prospect of seeing Leonard again and he closes his eyes to let himself enjoy the feeling. It’s a tingling, slightly dizzying feeling that makes him want to rush to his writing table and reply to every single line of Leonard’s letter. 

Underneath that is a warm coil of heat low in his belly and he shifts position in his chair to ease it, looking down at the last page of Leonard’s letter. There’s a signature and then a P.S., written at an angle in the lower corner of the paper as if it were an afterthought: _And, please, do call me Leonard. I’ve never particularly enjoyed being Mr. Finch._

**Author's Note:**

> Just a couple of references if you happen to need them: the current [_Beano_](https://www.beano.com/) magazine site along with a background [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beano) article on same. _The Criterion_ as founded by TS Eliot and crew went out of business in 1939 but [you can read about it here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Criterion) or look at some sample 'Table of Contents' pages [here](http://modmags.dmu.ac.uk/magazine_homeb0a1.htm?id=criterion). JStor [has some articles available via (free) log-in.](https://www.jstor.org/stable/4332112?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents)
> 
> And I sort of dithered over the title on this one but, in my mind, all of this story is very clearly taking place during the same period around Christmas 1954-1955 so using the one, over-arching title does make sense.


End file.
